I've been thinking a lot about how to show up this week.
How we celebrate launching something real in the world when it all feels ugly. And I keep coming back to this:
Beauty is inherently political. Creativity is too. Art is political. Being an indie founder is political.
I said that earlier this week about Casa Noon, the brand I've been building for three years. But it's true for all of us.
The work we make, the brands we build, the art we create, the businesses we run, don't exist in a vacuum.
Beauty standards profit from tension between "choice feminism" (choose these beauty practices) and systems that punish women for aging or not conforming. Whether beauty rituals empower or oppress is fundamentally about who controls women's bodies and labor.
And for years, the beauty industry, like so many industries, profits from immigrant labor and culture while staying quiet when it matters most.
Here's what I can do in my very small way:
In solidarity with the National Shutdown, a collective response to immigration enforcement actions that have separated families and killed community members, we're moving our launch for Casa Noon.
This brand wouldn't exist without immigrant communities. Our name includes a Spanish word. Our production relies on small family-owned labs and the expertise of immigrant workers who make this brand possible.
As a founder and creative, choosing to pause is a decision I get to make. And I don't take it lightly.
This has real consequences. We're a bootstrapped indie brand with no revenue. Every day we delay costs us money we don't have.
We're doing it anyway, and here’s why I'm telling you this:
Many of you are also building, launching, and sharing things you've poured years of care into. And doing that right now can feel complicated, heavy, and tender.
I want you to know: We're allowed to hold both things at once—the weight of what's happening in the world, and the love, effort, and belief it took to build something meaningful.
Tbh I’m in tears writing this from a plane on my way home from NYC. I was there for press meetings to support the launch of my brand. I feel joy talking about what my team has built. Yet I move from anger, rage, and frustration to profound determination equally.
But more for our country than for my launch date.
If you can, pause on Friday. Do it. Support the National Shutdown. Nurture yourself and your community IRL. Then come back ready to build from a grounded place.
Revolution requires you to be resourced. What that looks like: Don't work, don't shop. Sit with your community. Feel the anger. Let it move you instead of freeze you. Then next week, come back and build.
In this fight, we all have a role to play.
Tomorrow, we strike.
A note on the Cult Brand Blueprint Workshop:
We're still holding our Cult Brand Blueprint Workshop on Saturday. I'll leave space during the session to talk about how to navigate moments like this—when the world demands your attention and your brand still needs you to show up. If that would be helpful, I'll be there.
What's next as I launch Casa Noon?:
We won't participate in the fear-based marketing that dominates the beauty world. We won't tell women their sun-kissed skin needs correction or that aging is something to fight against (we've got plenty of things to fight—and it's not our skin and bodies).
We're committed to language that gives permission, not prescriptions. Naming my hero product "Sabbatical" in a culture obsessed with optimization and anti-aging is on purpose.
We're not selling correction or defiance of natural processes. We're here for rest, permission to step away, the thing capitalism says we don't deserve.
We know we'll be launching during chaos when we go live on our new date of February 6th. We've spent the last three years developing this brand, and we want to celebrate this special thing we've created, but we won't gaslight you into some idea that we don't see the ugliness, and we won't give you toxic positivity.
All I can do is be human. And hope that amongst all of this you'll want to be a part of what I've created.
After three years, this is hard. Of course. But we'll always stand with our community and for human rights and decency above all else.
p.s. Please forgive any typos. Much love.
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